Looking forward to 2022

As 2021 closes out, there is a lot to look forward to in 2022 in the worlds of technology and experience design, these are my top three to look out for.

More focus on the modern workplace

For how long are we working at home? What is hybrid working? How should offices be laid out in a post-Covid world? For nearly two years these, and many others, have been questions that have been difficult to grasp answers to as we have navigated point-to-point in response to a devastating pandemic.

Even the world's largest companies have found charting this path impossible, in August Google announced a push-back of its return to work plans and with its new deadline is approaching in the midst of an omicron variant surge around the world it has had to push this back again. Alongside this, we are experiencing an unprecedented realignment in the labor market as for a variety of connected reasons workers leave jobs or the world of work entirely. For smaller organizations with less resources the challenge has been even greater to chart what a future normal might look like.

If 2022 is the year we can start to step out from under the shadow of the pandemic, then I hope it will give organizations of all types and sizes the opportunity to really evolve their working practices and spaces to continue to embrace the positives we found during this tumultuous and unhappy time. We have a unique opportunity to embrace new ways of working that, connected with technology, offer a revolution for work-life balance and equity in our workplaces. 

Better balance between in-person and virtual experiences

 As we hopefully emerge from this period where virtual events have been forced upon us due to safety concerns or mandates related to in-person activities, 2022 may be the year where we can all be more discerning about the opportunities each of these operating models offers.

The embrace of virtual experiences is not going to go away. Online meetings support hybrid work, which in turn helps everyone in a workplace have their life balance respected, whether they are in an office or not. But other types of virtual experience will stay with us too. This will create an imperative for those organizations who have sat on the fence on this to invest appropriately where virtual or hybrid experiences make sense to what they do.

 Equally, the option to safely return to in-person experiences offers us the opportunity to improve those events and meetings too. Imagine a world where you can feel sure that if you have been invited to an in-person experience that you are truly going to *experience* something that requires in-person delivery and is therefore unique and special. This offers event planners and experience professionals the chance to show off why in-person is important and give organizations creative options that could not have been dreamed of in the old world of event overflow.

Product availability

 If 2020 was the year we had to make do with technology that didn't quite meet the needs we were finding in front of us, then 2021 was the year we couldn't get our hands on the technology that was supposed to be available to aid our new ways of working.

 Some supply shortages may ease in 2022, so getting products such as better webcams, laptop docking stations, and GPUs for design or video work may become easier. This in turn may help to solidify business' ability for the longer-term embrace of hybrid work practices that are properly and safely resourced.

Title image credit: Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash